Real Estate Matters 10.20.2020

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) -Money is always an issue whether you’re buying a home are already own one. In this week’s Real Estate Matters with Shawn Cunningham, a local realtor offers some insights into ways to reasonably trim your property tax bill.

Letters in the mail are always either good news or bad, especially when it comes to bills, and particularly a property tax bill. But local realtors say its important to thoroughly Read Your Assessment Letter.

Stephanie Fields Fields Realty LLC.

“when the new assessment comes in the mail it lists the information about your property such as the lot size the legal description as well as the assessed value of the home and land...”and if you think the home assessment is higher than it should be you could challenge it most municipalities have a thirty day period to challenge that and there are certain steps to take with your taxing authority."

Shawn Cunningham

The next step...is to Decide If a Property Tax Appeal Is Worth Your Time...

“how much you wanna put into it depends on the stakes you feel are at risk. the median property tax for example in 2015 was 15 hundred dollars per capita and that is based on a tax foundation so it all depends on the time that you wanna put into it and how much you really believe the assessment is off.”

Number 3...Check the Data

“you really wanna make sure the information you get is accurate for instance the number of bathrooms the number of bedrooms maybe there was one bathroom when you bought the house and you got a plumber come in and you changed it to a two bathroom house you might have changed it from a two bedroom to a three bedroom house and if the facts are wrong you may have a quick and easy challenge to appeal that assessment.”

She says you can do the initial research online in just a few minutes or by making a quick call to your real estate agent. Shawn Cunningham, NS 8.

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